Scans_Daily

Bringing the crack since December 2003

Malum Discordiae : The FBI kills Megaupload

Greetings, Ladies and Gentlemen! Chocochuy reporting for duty and bringing you some news from the global community.

As you might recall, yesterday was the peaceful blackout of pages like Wikipedia, Google, Mozilla and our very own Dreamwidth in order to protest against the SOPA bill. Well, just some hours ago Megaupload was shut down by the FBI, thus causing the arrest of its inner circle and the loss of countless Terabytes of both illegal and safe files. Retribution from hackers all over the globe was not denied and hours later the group that calls itself Anonymous hacked several government sitesas well as asking all cybernauts to join their revolution against the rich 1%. It might be kinda exaggerated to say this but I am certain that were witnessing the genesis of the First World Internet War. In my honest opinion I think the loss of Megaupload may be a heavy loss for most cybernauts and it may also herald the beginning of some authoritarian movements if the FBI can go shutting down websites when the SOPA has not been approved yet. What we are really seeing is a struggle between two powerful forces, none of them wanting to give up, that will change the way we use the internet from now on if a peaceful solution is not found.

I will be glad to hear your opinions in this matter, comrades, especially if this SOPA bill goes out of control and tries targeting our beloved fanfics/fanarts.

Here is an old Captain America picture done by Frank Miller. It may be over-used but it seems quite fitting.

SOPA would've been controlled by the media industry and was actively backed by a variety of big media corporations. SOPA is more of a supposed anti-piracy measure, but being controlled by the media industry - not the government, they would have the power to shut down any website they feel is in legal violation of intellectual properties and copyrights and whatnot. Not only could they target websites, but people too; The new legislation would've allowed them to give people who downloaded around ten songs via streaming around five years in prison, apparently.

It is, of course, targeting completely the wrong people with that approach, because the people who say, download maybe one song through illicit means are hardly on the same level as people who actively profit from pirating DVD's on a massive scale.

'wasn't on my hands, not my choice. As far as a graphic designer (who really does way too much admin' stuff if you ask me) can decided, the higher ups decide.They probably thought it was "cool" or something...

"Carbonite " <- never heard of that one"Google docs " <- I guess I'll have to go with this one now :P

We needed something simple that people using their own private laptops or not knowing anything about computers could use.(and it didn't need any login or anything, just a link sent by email, *click download*, wait and that was it~)

Obama is largely irrelevant at this stage. What he thinks is not going to influence the Democrats who support it--Wasserman-Schultz isn't going to change her co-sponsorship with Lamar Smith just because Obama objects. She's a CA politician she's looking after the Hollywood interests.

The way I heard it, SOPA got pushed back to next month by the House of Representatives and the Senate plans to vote on PIPA on the 24 of this month. Obama won't get either bill until the Senate has voted on them and placed them on his desk. At best, the boys at the White House has stated they will not support a bill that limits freedom of expression and increases cybersecurity risk.

I think a fair amount of the outrage is coming from the fact that megaupload was used for a lot of legit filesharing as well as/more importantly than copyright infringement, as well as how easily a lot of piracy could be curbed if media was made more easily accessible. Taking away how people get their hands on stuff instead of plumbing in official methods of getting stuff to its audience is baffling to a lot of people.

Like, if you shut down filesharing sites because people pirate from big companies with them, which sites do freelance creators use to get their own large files to their audience?

Oh, yeah, it's definitely really annoying for all the legitimate users! Especially if the data isn't being stored. And I completely agree about making media more accessible - it seems like some companies are moving towards it, and it can't happen soon enough. I guess I'm just not sure what else the FBI could've done other than take MU offline at this point in their investigation.

Yeah. From skimming the indictment, there were charges of racketeering and money laundering in addition to copyright infringement, the owners have been caught personally telling people how to locate pirated movies on their site and searching their own database for pirated stuff, they weren't complying with the notice and takedown law, and when companies reported copyright content they only removed the specific reported URL but kept the files on their systems. (Oh, and if you skip to the list of property in the back, the owners bought themselves personalised licence plates including "GUILTY", "HACKER", and "MAFIA". Smart!)

So this is not "some users uploaded copyright stuff on a file storage site", this is "the owners knew about it, encouraged it, did it themselves, made enormous amounts of money off it, bragged about it, and lied about removing the content when asked". ...I can't really summon a lot of outrage.

Yeah, that's why Canadians like me and folks around the world are concerned about this. Whatever else the US is, it's a pretty big influence on international copyright and what they do will affect the rest of us, regardless of our own feelings on the matter.

There's probably (or, I'm assuming it's reasonable to assume that there was) no other path they could have taken. BUT, that doesn't mean that there's no reason for a backlash or further protests. So the current laws and rules mean that the FBI was obliged to shut down this site and arrest people. So, maybe there need to be some newer, expert-designed, up-to-date rules and protocols - and everyone affected by the take-down yelling about how the current situation sucks is probably going to help with getting that done, right?

By the way, cybernaut is a valid word. I know it is not used as much as one believes but it does imply those who surf the cyberspace.This sentence is so wonderfully 90's I wanna get mirror shades, a trench coat and a katana and start rocking.

Mediafire which refuses to work half the time instead reloading the page and forcing you to wait an extra half hour and Rapidshare which I'm legitimately surprised didn't go down first. They were the go to place for 4chan users for a while and they barely try to hide that they don't give a shit as to what files are uploaded.

As someone who has used MegaUpload legitimately (I used it to store a large quantity of photos I took and send them to relatives overseas), it bothers me that they felt MegaUpload was a valid enough threat to get destroyed.And I'm extremely against SOPA/PIPA.But this is just ABSOLUTELY over dramatic. "First Internet World War"? Anonymous sounds like a child who has no idea how governments, yet alone the rest of the world, even worksAnd you do NOT hack governments websites and servers! That is NOT Protest. The occupy movement is a protest! Hacking government websites causes real, tangible problems and threats to not only security but also people's jobs!

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